Comic 246: Xkcd-sucks loves you

Happy Valentine's Day, Cuddlefish. Since you are cuddlefish, you most likely are alone for the 14th of February. Allow me to fix that. Tonight I will be reviewing comic 246, while naked.

Comic title: Labyrinth Puzzle

Alt text: And the whole setup is just a trap to capture escaping logicians. None of the doors actually lead out.

This is one of cptnoremac's favourite comics, though I can't imagine why. It's not that it's awful. It's just that it doesn't really excel in any way.

The premise is based on a classic riddle, which most people have already heard some variant of. If you are familiar with cult '80s films, you may have seen it in Labyrinth, which I am guessing the title is alluding to. It would be nice if the comic told the reader why they would be asking the guards questions, and not just assume that the knew that part. It's a minor gripe, but C- for standalone value.

I'm just gonna say the joke is kind of weak, and leave it at that. D for humour. The joke in the alt text is a little bit better. D+ for alt text humour. But then again, didn't Labyrinth already do something similar to that? The idea of solving a riddle but failing anyway because the riddle itself is a lie is not a cliched attempt at humour per se. It's just that it's obvious. People don't make jokes if they're obvious, unless they're just passing around quips in casual conversation, or unless they're Randall Munroe. It works as a movie plot twist, because the last fifteen minutes have set up the expectation that the titular labyrinth is a cruel place, but has a few rules. When those rules are subverted, it is a surprise for the audience as well as the character. But the joke in the alt text has no set up, except for the single panel comic with an even weaker joke. This panel only sets up the expectation that the system is rigged towards not letting anyone escape. How is it at all surprising that all the doors lead to failure.

I am probably overthinking this. Let's move on. D- for Black Hat not being Black Hat. C for... I dunno, the artwork?

Thanks a lot cptnoremac for hardly giving me anything to review. But of course, it wouldn't be Valentine's Day without a gift. I know I promised you fanfiction in the summer, but you're such a lovely audience, I think I will give you a little taste of it right now.

❤        ❤        ❤

Randall's Bad Dream

Randall woke up in his ball pit. It had been the thirty-fifth time in this dream that he had woken up, and yet his creative mind was not working. For all he tried, he could not think of a witty reference to a 2010 sci-fi thriller for this situation.

"Wait a minute. You haven't even seen Inception," cackled the ugly Carl "Ugly" Wheeler, as he sneered at Randall from underneath his balls.

Suddenly, Carl transformed into a velociraptor. Carl had always been a velociraptor. And he was an ugly velociraptor. Randall could hear the Jurassic Park theme, playing all discorded and out of tune. He tried to run, but the door was on the other side of the ball pit. He stumbled and fell face first into a load of balls. The raptor lunged, and snapped its jaws closed upon Randall's spindly neck. Clever girl.

Randall woke up again. Where could he be this time? He was in a bed with white sheets, right where he remembered falling asleep. Surely he was properly awake now. All the walls in his apartment were white. The sunlight from the bedroom window was shining brightly in his eyes, so everything in the room looked white.

Randall crawled out of the bed, and walked through the open door to the bathroom, hoping to find his Megan reclined over the bidet, shirtless, offering him a chance to suckle at her milky milk pillows. But what he actually saw was a mirror, the large mirror that hung above the sink. But it was not showing his usual reflection. Instead of his body, he saw a skinny black line, extending from his crotch up to his neck. Two more lines jutted out from his neck line at odd angles, his arms.

And his head... His head was nothing more than a big white circle, slightly larger than his original head, but perfectly smooth and white and bald and slightly elongated. Featureless. Randall had turned into a stick figure. He had always been a stick figure. Randall tried to scream, to open his mouth, but he could not, because he had no mouth. He tried to close his eyes to shut out the blinding horror that confronted him, yet he could not. Nothing could take away the hideous ugly situation that faced him now that was having no face with no eyes. He couldn't draw eyes.

Comic 1322: Houston, we have a booger.

Title: Winter

Alt text: Stay warm, little flappers, and find lots of plant eggs!

Okay, I admit, I laughed a bit at 'plant eggs'. But then again, I have seen that kind of humour before. Do you know who it reminds me of?

Ralph Wiggum.

"I found a moon rock in my nose."

Except not exactly. The comparison is not apt for a few key reasons. First, Beret is not a child, or at least he is not dumb. He made a choice to be like this, which he explains here in the fourth panel. Other than that they have quite a lot in common. They are both fairly one-dimensional characters. They both use the wrong words for stuff. Yet they both show a measure of intellectual curiosity - Beret has his exoplanets. Ralph has his "Hi Super Nintendo Chalmers. I'm learnding."

I really hate the word 'manchild', but I've noticed it is surprisingly apt for Beret.

As an aside, all Xkcd characters can be imagined as children. It sometimes makes the comic funnier, and sometimes it makes it a lesser clone of SMBC. I tried imagining Beret as a child in some of the previous comics he appeared in. I found works with most of them. Try it yourself.

I don't know about you, but I think if Randall actually specified the age of his characters and made Beret a child, it would be kinda cute. The moral of this review is that children are just better, or rather that people will judge you less for your idiocy if you have the face of a child. And that reality will remain until children are afforded equal rights.

Since I kind of have to give grades at this point, I give 1322 a D for humour. D- for lack of a punchline. D+ for the premise, and B+ for the cuteness of the little kid with the beret, though it's an imagined B+.

You know, I think I might start imagining you guys as children. It would make the comments section more entertaining.

Comic 631: The Idolatry of Flesh

Comic title: Anatomy Text

Alt text: For many of the anatomy pictures on Wikipedia, I think this is actually not far from reality. They only look all formal and professional due to careful cropping.

Gentlemen, I have been waiting a long time to review this comic. Number 631 represents a turning point in Xkcd's history. It may have introduced a great many of you to the hate community in the first place. Not since CADbortion has an online comic been so divisive, so polarising, so worthy of hate. We may never see another one like it.

And let me begin by saying I don't hate it at all. I think it is fucking brilliant. Many other Xkcds have been about witty little conversations with Black Hat, about computers and people's opinions, and they are boring as fuck. THIS show us what Xkcd is capable of. Here is an Xkcd that is not afraid to take risks. This will be remembered as a true classic, because just one time, Randall was able to throw off all his pseudo-intellectual pretensions about being a webcomic artist and draw a cartoon vagina.

What is the problem here? That he drew a vagina? Feh! Vaginas are part of the human body. If you're not lucky enough to have one between your legs, then you have a schmeckel, which is arguably worse. My point being that people are only offended by these parts because they're not used to seeing them, because they are offended by them, etc, etc. Thank the lord Randall had the schmutz to try and break us out of this vicious cycle. Otherwise God forbid, we wouldn't be allowed to show pictures of genitals to our children.

Randall gets a rare A* grade from me for genuine subversion. Let's explore that subversion in more detail, shall we? In panel one we are shown a well-composed portrait of the human bosoms. I say bosoms, but it is only the right one. Is the left one even there? The suspense is spine-tingling. We shall have to wait till the next panel to find out.

We never do see the left bosom. What we do see is jaw-droppingly detailed depiction of Megan's vagina (vulva to use the correct term). Words fail to describe it. This is perhaps the best artwork I have seen in an Xkcd to date. A* for artwork, Randall. You thoroughly deserved it.

After this roller-coaster ride of exposed parts, what do we expect for the next two panels? The captions would have us believe they depict penises, in both flaccid and erect states. Are they two different penises, or the same penis at different points in time? Is it circumcised?? We may never know, because our anatomical crusade is cut short by a voice off-camera telling us that "You can't do that in here." truly the villain of the piece.

Our expectations are fully subverted when it is revealed that our disrobed heroes are in fact taking photos of themselves in a crowded restaurant. This is made all the more astonishing by the fact that the details around the photos and the captioning in the first few panels build our expectations that they are in a more controlled studio setting. But Randall and Megan are true risk-takers, and they are not afraid to create art that offends people, both in the sense of the in-story production of the nude photos, and the real life production of the comic. A** for subversion of expectations, on both levels of fiction.

My only problem here is that Randall does not draw the male member. Rather, he shies away from depicting nudity of both genders. A- for equal gender representation. Why did I not give him a worse grade? Because he gives us the next best thing. He lets us imagine it ourself. I have sometimes heard it said that the most powerful Xkcds are ones that you can imagine yourself (to quote Luggage: "It's in my head.") However, that is mostly a flimsy excuse for lack of artwork. In this case however, it is a perfectly valid reason, because you are totally imagining Randall's dick in the third and fourth panels without even trying to. Don't pretend you aren't.

Randall continues to show us that he is a master of suspense by covering up the nude stick figure in the final panel. This leads us to question the very nature of the comfortable reality that is Xkcd. Are all stick figures nude? We have certainly learned that they are anatomically correct. And that is a very important thing to learn. Remember that it may be Xkcd readers' first time seeing the female anatomy. This comic fulfils an important duty of guiding those individuals towards sexual awakening, which is an important, nay essential, step towards growing up. This comic is in many ways an expression of what we are and who we can be when we become adults. A******++++ for helping us to grow up.

Thank you, so much to Anon 12:13 for requesting this review. I hope it was to your satisfaction. I don't want this blog to become an echo chamber, so I fully invite you to share your own opinions in the space below. You are allowed to disagree. Just know that if you do so, then you are a prude.

Say hi to me on Twitter while you're at it.

By the way, if you got fired for reading this at work, then you fucking deserved it.

Comic 21: Science joke. You should probably just move along.

This review is dedicated to the one guy who follows this blog on Feedspot. You know who you are...

It's been a while since I've reviewed a classic. And the comic requested by Anon 12:27 is even older than Xkcd itself (the first 50 or so comics were posted on forums before Randall moved them to their own site).

Comic title: Kepler

Alt text: Science joke. You should probably just move along.

Yes, it actually says that.

And I think this is indicative of an earlier, more self-conscious, Randall. He knew his jokes were esoteric and geeky. And he accepted that as one of his flaws. B for self-consciousness. Now that he is surrounded by his echo chamber of fans, he falsely recognises it as a strength. If you don't understand the joke, then you aren't a true fan.

I'm going to step forward and confess that I don't understand the joke here. I have been skim-reading the Wikipedia article on Johannes Kepler, and I still don't understand the joke. I did learn a few things about Kepler, such as the fact that he developed new theories on planetary motion, and developed a platonic solid model of the solar system. So that's neat, right? Xkcd has caused me to learn something.

Wrong! I should not have to do research to understand a punchline, ever. Now don't get me wrong. I am scientifically curious, and I subscribe to a lot of educational Youtube channels. But I enjoy that knowledge for its own sake, not because some self-important nerd-god told me to learn it.

Let's use an analogy here. If your parents punish you by forcing you to read a boring textbook, and that textbook ends up being quite interesting, then it is to the credit of the people who wrote that book. In this analogy, the textbook is Wikipedia, and Randall is my dad.

So the few facts I learned about Johannes Kepler are to the credit of the anonymous volunteers who write Wikipedia, not to the shmendrik who sent me there in the first place. I would give him a grade at this point for standalone value, but it's become a dead horse at this point, so I'll just give him U for Ungradable (the bottom mark in British exams).

Nevertheless, there seems to be a widely held opinion among webcomic fans:

The added bonus, for me, is that looking up new information like that is just as enjoyable as reading the strip itself.

~ Aaron Diaz, author of Dresden Codak

Let me just say that I disagree. But what's the alternative you say? We only make lowest-common-denominator jokes about farts and reality television? No. I say the context of the joke should explain the idea of the thing it is about.

To difficult you say? Feh! Here is an example of an Xkcd that does it right. Yes, the 'sudo make me a sandwich' one. Who here can honestly say this one is difficult to understand? It is obvious from the context that sudo is a command that forces something to obey you, probably a piece of computer jargon that overrides all settings to give you admin permissions for that action. And the best part is that it was all conveyed in four lines of dialog. And I should point out that if you wanted to find out more about what sudo does, then you are free to do so.

I had to go to explainxkcd to find the actual meaning of comic 21, and it was a disappointment.

According to Kepler's Second Law, "A line joining a planet and the Sun sweeps out equal areas during equal intervals of time." This looks like wiping a wipe on the floor. 

In the comic, the janitor Kepler also sweeps the same area, although in this case "area" is used in the sense of "surface" (of floor) rather than in the purely mathematical sense.

Really? It's not even the same meaning of the word area. Is that supposed to be a pun? Well it sucks. F for humour.

Also, why the fuck did he draw all these early Xkcds on squared paper? Did they not have plain paper at NASA? F- for lack of effort. See me after class.

Comic 1314: Condescending Stranger

This review is dedicated to Anon 9:11 in the previous comment thread, who requested it.

Comic title: Photos

Alt text: I hate when people take photos of their meal instead of eating it, because there's nothing I love more than the sound of other people chewing.

Oy, I knew we were in for a rough ride when we saw White Hat in the first panel. When did we see this figure in a comic where he wasn't playing a strawman? And I use the word 'figure' instead of 'character' because he is not a character, despite some people's claims that he is.

Let's have a show of hands here (sound off in the comments section if you like) - who thinks Xkcd has characters, in the sense that The Simpsons has characters?

If you said yes, then you must agree to the implication that White Hat in 1314 is the same White Hat who appeared in 915 and 973. And what is his defining trait in all of these? He is a self-righteous asshole, a snob with opinions, or at least he is portrayed that way. He is the example that you, the audience are not supposed to follow. White Hat's character concept was never supposed to be anything more than a strawman, and so the writing suffers for it.

Good writing is supposed to tell a story, not to tell people what to do. In the words of author Philip Pullman: "Thou Shalt Not is soon forgotten, but Once Upon a Time is forever." He would do well to follow his own words, given that The Amber Spyglass was basically a religious flame-war in book form. But our Mr Munroe has probably never even heard of words to that effect.

Let me say right now that I largely agree with the message being spoken in this comic. I find it does take away from the moment to faff around with exposure settings when you just want to enjoy a pretty sight for what it is, but the payoff is that you get to keep a record of it forever. I get that, and yet the comic rubs me the wrong way because it's being preachy. Somehow, the hatless man comes across as the bigger asshole here. He has unwittingly become the very thing that he is fighting, the condescending stranger, the schmuck with opinions.

But why should you listen to me? I am, after all, a schmuck with opinions.


Obligatory grades: B for the artwork in the first panel. D- for the artwork in every other panel. F* for wall of text. F*** for the preachiness. DETENTION for Gizmodo repost.

Comic 1308: So this is Christmas

Alt text: Merry Christmas from xkcd!

You ever played one of those dumb little maze games? You know, this sort of thing:

This is the comic equivalent of that. The challenge is easy. And the reward is not even worth considering. The only reward for the maze is the fact that both exists are now connected by an unbroken line of pencil (or pen, if you dare). The reward for this comic is that you know it's a picture of people sitting around a fire at Christmas.

As such, I'm going to give it a B for standalone value. You'd have to be very ignorant of the properties of electromagnetic radiation to not realise that they are the light spectra of a log fire and the lights on a Christmas tree (on the left and right respectively).

Not exactly revolutionary. I'd much rather this be a comic where Beret guy is having an good old fashioned Christmas argument with the two other people in the comic, who I presume are his parents. That would be entertaining at least. The only thing original about this comic is the way the message is obfuscated by some faux-nerdy scribbles.

But let's play devil's advocate for a second. The fact that you can see a Christmas scene even though there isn't one there is kind of neat, right? Right?? In the immortal words of Luggage: "Somehow, I feel that this is the strongest xkcd yet. It's in my head." And I must agree that there is value in art that requires a little bit of interpretation.

This is not that. This actually reminds me of something Randall said a while back...

"Communicating badly and acting smug when you're misunderstood is not cleverness."

F* for hypocrisy. Please cut off your own arm before you think of writing another comic like that.

Thank you Anon 6:54 for requesting a review of this comic. I have decided I would like to do more of this, so here's how it's going to work in the future:

The first commenter (OMG FIRST!) gets to choose the comic for the next review. It can be any comic number, as long as I haven't reviewed it before. I cannot guarantee the review will be negative, nor can I guarantee any sort of schedule. Oh, and any further requests will be ignored until I post that review, lest the comments end up looking like the comments section on Epic Rap Battles.

Died in a Blogging Accident: Sneak Peek!

UPDATE July 2014 – Died In A Blogging accident can now be found here!

------

Happy Christmas to all you goyim. Since you're checking the blog on Christmas Fucking Day, I assume you have no family, or you are one of the chosen people. Either way you deserve a present. Allow me to give you a preview of chapter 3

------

Thank you for your interest, but this preview was intended only for viewers over the Christmas period, and has now been removed. If you want to see chapter 3, please wait until it comes out in the summer. See you then! And keep tweeting #DiaBA!